PLAYERS GRADES: LAKERS VS. NUGGETS

You just kind of run out of words to say at some point.

Monday really, finally felt like the time the Lakers would get past the Nuggets. They dominated the first half. They closed the second quarter strong. They came out in the third quarter with the necessary urgency Anthony Davis said they lacked in Game 1.

And yet, not a single Lakers fan believed the 20-point lead was safe midway through the third. Unfortunately, they were all right.

The shots stopped falling, the offense stopped moving and the defense loosened. There are fingers to be pointed, and we’ll get to that shortly, but there’s a bigger point here that deserves to be made, too.

The Lakers played a really, really good basketball game on Monday. Against any other team in the league — Celtics included — I truly believe they win that game. But the Nuggets require perfection. If you let go of the rope even for a couple of minutes, they pounce and yank themselves back into the game.

The Lakers had so many things go right for them on Monday — not everything, though — and yet, at the end of the day, there was no consistent answer for Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray when it mattered. Those two were perfect together when they had to be. The Lakers were simply “only” great.

The result is a 2-0 hole and as demoralizing a loss as the franchise has had since perhaps the 2008 NBA Finals. That’s apropos, in many ways, because it feels cruel that this is a first round series when it feels much higher stakes and intensity than that.

So, let’s grade the loss. As always, grades are based on expectations for each player. “A” grade represents the average performance for that player.

Anthony Davis

39 minutes, 32 points, 11 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, 1 block, 14-19 FG, 0-1 3PT, 4-4 FT, +0

The first half from AD was as dominant and good a half as he’s ever had as a Laker. No one could stop him. And he started the second half equally as dominant.

But then, he drifted out of the game. Some of it was a defensive switch that put Aaron Gordon on him and he had more of an effect on AD than Jokic did. Some of that was playcalling. A lot of it was LeBron taking over in the fourth quarter.

You can also try to criticize him for not getting stops on Jokic late and getting in foul trouble, but the next person to figure out how to stop Jokic will be the first. AD had him silenced for three-quarters of this game.

For half this game, it was an A+ performance.

Grade: A-

LeBron James

38 minutes, 26 points, 8 rebounds, 12 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks, 9-19 FG, 3-6 3PT, 5-7 FT, +2

Through three quarters, this was an average LeBron game at best. He was distributing well, but he was not being efficient or aggressive.

Then, the fourth quarter came and he went for it. He took over the possessions, scoring 12 of the team’s 20 points. The Lakers’ offense had stalled out so he took it upon himself to ensure they would get good looks.

And they did. Repeatedly. He was terrific offensively and defensively in the fourth. He destroyed the Murray-Jokic two-man game to get a steal and dunk late in the quarter to go up three.

The big question with him will be the final shot. With 17.5 seconds on the game clock and 12 seconds on the shot clock, LeBron dropped his defender and stared down a wide open 3-pointer that he missed. The Nuggets then took the ball, went down court and won the game.

To that point, LeBron was 5-8 from the field in the fourth and 2-2 from three. And those long-range efforts were recent, so he was in rhythm. The shot just didn’t fall.

It’s a push and pull of asking whether the Lakers were going to get a better look than that. LeBron was incredible in the fourth and it was an open 3-pointer. It’s hard to be mad about the shot.

Grade; A

Rui Hachimura

38 minutes, 3 points, 5 rebounds, 1-7 FG, 0-2 3PT, 1-2 FT, -7

What a horrid two games for Rui in Denver. In Game 1, he was passively bad. In Game 2, he was actively bad.

A good amount of that is kudos to the Nuggets. The Lakers went to LeBron-AD pick and rolls to target Jokic in the third quarter. Denver adjusted by putting Jokic on Rui and Gordon on AD. Instead of still spamming the LeBron-AD pick and rolls, LeBron continued hunting Rui.

The chemistry, though, wasn’t there the same and the offense bogged down. The Lakers could never adjust accordingly and the few times they did find Rui open, he didn’t knock down the shots.

It was also wildly frustrating to see Rui miss time and time again at the rim. All in all, this is one of his worst games as a Laker, given the context.

Hopefully, the adage of role players playing better at home holds true and Rui bounces back in a big way on Thursday.

Grade: F

Austin Reaves

33 minutes, 9 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 4-11 FG, 1-5 3PT, +5

The Lakers just have to get more out of Reaves in this series. Through two games now, he’s now 9-20 from the field but 3-11 from the 3-point line. He’s handed out 10 assists, but the Lakers need him scoring.

LeBron is going to dominate the ball and Reaves is going to be off of fit more in this series than during the regular season. The adjustment hasn’t been there yet for him. Again, he could really use a home crowd boost on Thursday.

Grade: D

D’Angelo Russell

39 minutes, 23 points, 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 8-16 FG, 7-11 3PT, +4

No one has ever needed a game like this more than D’Lo did on Monday. He spoke about being excited for Game 2 after a dismal Game 1, then came out and answered the bell. In the first half alone, he connected on seven 3-pointers.

In the second half, though, he became a bit of a passenger. He attempted only six shots, four 3-pointers, and five points and one assist. It was a bit too much Jekyll and Hyde, but one half was so, so good and his clutch baskets in the second half still were really important.

Grade: A-

Taurean Prince

22 minutes, 6 points, 3 rebounds, 2-3 FG, 2-3 3PT, +2

Overall, this wasn’t a bad Prince game. It wasn’t a good one. It was just average. Average is fine for Prince. The bigger problem is he’s the only player off the bench capable of delivering an average performance.

Grade: B

Spencer Dinwiddie

10 minutes, 1 assist, 2 steals, 0-1 FG, -9

This should be the final game Dinwiddie plays as a Laker. I know I made the excuse that role players play better at home for Reaves and Rui, but this is an ongoing trend with Dinwiddie.

He isn’t providing anything offensively with any sort of consistency and he isn’t good enough defensively. He’s been a worse defensive version of Cam Reddish.

The Lakers are likely going to welcome back Jarred Vanderbilt and Christian Wood for Game 3. Here’s 10 minutes they should be allocated off the bat.

Grade: F

Gabe Vincent

15 minutes, 1 rebound, 1 assist, 1 steal, 0-2 FG, 0-2 3PT, -6

It was easier to justify giving Vincent minutes in the playoffs when he knocked down a couple of 3-pointers against the Pelicans. But he hasn’t hit a shot since the team left New Orleans.

Again, I’d be fine at this point giving these minutes to Vando. Try something else.

Grade; D

Jaxson Hayes

6 minutes, 1 rebound, -1

I do feel a bit bad for Hayes. He played remarkably well for the second half of the season, only to play 10 minutes in the first two games of the playoffs. I think there are more opportunities to use him, but Ham really doesn’t seem to trust him to defend Jokic.

If the team is going to get crushed on the boards, it’s hard to justify keeping Hayes on the bench. But if you’re only going to give him six minutes, there’s some more minutes to potentially give Wood, who is a great rebounder, in Game 3.

Grade: C

Darvin Ham

I’m not going to go into too deep of a dive on Ham here. There seems to be a big knee-jerk reaction to point to him whenever the Lakers lose.

On Monday, the finger-pointing was a result of the offense going awry in the second half. Fair. Things ground to a halt and the Lakers looked lost. I also think the fingers should be pointed at the Lakers, too, for their inability to execute.

Ham and the staff can draw up all the plays they want, but if Reaves throws an entry pass directly at his defender or D’Lo attempts an underhanded lob from beyond halfcourt, that’s not a Ham problem.

The other complaint for him came late in the game when he did not challenge what was seemingly a soft foul on LeBron against Murray, which resulted in two Denver free throws to tie the game. Ham had two timeouts left at the time. Again, another probably fair critique, though judging by how the officials called the game on Monday — which the Lakers were very upset about postgame — it’s anyone’s guess how they would have ruled that challenge.

Overall, he did a great job of adjusting for Game 2, drawing up a great gameplan and helping the team build a 20-point lead. The Lakers also executed in the final three minutes and got a number of great looks. There was just a stretch of roughly 10 in-game minutes where things went awry.

Grade: B-

Monday’s DNPs: Max Christie, Maxwell Lewis

Monday’s inactives: Jalen Hood-Schifino, Christian Wood, Cam Reddish, Jarred Vanderbilt

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.

2024-04-23T08:04:56Z dg43tfdfdgfd